


Next Days

by SharkAria



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 07:43:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20327563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharkAria/pseuds/SharkAria
Summary: Entrapta and Hordak learn that they want more than just to open the portal.





	Next Days

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, did you think I only write dirty smut that starts in the first 500 words of a story? I mean you’d mostly be right. But NOT THIS TIME!
> 
> This fic is dedicated to incredibly skilled artist OrnamentHorde for the most beautiful fanart that an author could ask for!! Hope you like it!!!!
> 
> As always, I make up the name of the tech as I go along, I fudge Hordak’s canonical anatomy, and I twist external circumstances with torturous logic to make sure these two start making out.

“Day One Hundred Seventy on Project Portal. I’ve upgraded the power source, tweaked the wiring, and recalibrated the instruments. Oh, and you cleaned up the mess from the last run.” Entrapta reaches for the lever, tingling from her scalp to her toenails with anticipation. She glances over her shoulder. “We ready to fire this thing up?”

“Not yet,” Hordak says with a frown. He steps forward, his new exosuit gleaming in the sanctum lights. “You remain insufficiently concerned for your safety.”

“Meaning?” Entrapta runs her gloved fingers over the handle impatiently.

Hordak glares down at her, then looks at the floor and clenches his fist. He remains silent for an annoyingly long time, then finally extends his arm. “Give me your hand. If the machine explodes again, I can pull you out of danger.”

The request seems reasonable to Entrapta, though it coincides, strangely, with a marked increase in the tingly feeling across her skin. She shrugs. “Sure, if that’s what you want.” She slaps her palm in his and returns her focus to where it belongs. “Alright! We’re ready! Commencing operations now!” 

As Entrapta slams the lever into place, galactic matter swirls green before her, and soon the same luminous time-space oval appears in the central chamber. Then it fizzles out.

“What an improvement!” Entrapta shouts as Hordak simultaneously howls, “Another failure!”

Entrapta turns to her partner. “Not at all! Come and see.” With her hand still clasping his, she drags him across the room to her primary display screen. Her ponytails punch a few buttons and soon an image of the failed portal appears. “See the dark spots in the middle? I added sensors to approximate the shape of the missing key that we need to make the machine work. I never expected to open the portal today. But once we run a few more tests, we’ll have adequate data to fabricate the needed component.”

Hordak studies the screen without saying anything, and Entrapta allows the display run through the simulation again. “Brilliant,” he murmurs finally. 

“Also, nothing exploded,” Entrapta adds proudly. Then she remembers that she’s still holding Hordak’s hand, and he seems to notice at the same time, for he releases her immediately and crosses his arms over his chest and stalks away while grumbling about substandard technology on this backwater planet. 

The next day, when Entrapta is about to push the lever for the next test, Hordak clears his throat. Entrapta meets his eyes, but she can’t easily discern what he’s thinking from his expression. 

“Safety,” Hordak mumbles, and he thrusts his arm toward her as if it’s an expired ration bar.

“Oh, right!” Entrapta says, grabbing his hand and smiling just a little.

The portal fails to open, which Entrapta expects. Hordak interlaces his fingers with hers, which she does not expect. But again he releases her after they finish viewing the data. She finds herself staring at the back of her glove all afternoon.

The day after that, Entrapta reaches for Hordak’s hand first. She slams the lever forward again, and the portal fails to open again, but this time the display reveals a clearly identifiable shape for the missing key. 

“Can you believe it?” Entrapta cries as she catapults up to Hordak’s eye level with the assistance of her hair. “Of course the key is She-Ra’s sword! Of course it’s the most powerful First Ones tech that exists!” 

Hordak doesn’t seem happy with the discovery, though. “Of course it is,” he snarls, exposing sharp red teeth.

Patting Hordak’s shoulder with a few strands of her ponytail, Entrapta ignores her partner’s demeanor. “This is good news. I can get to work on a prototype, and we can run some more tests, and if that doesn’t work --”

“If that doesn’t work, and it probably won’t, we’re stuck trying to fetch the sword from Adora. Another fool’s errand.” He drops Entrapta’s hand and turns away from her. 

“Oh.” Entrapta sinks down and stands on her feet again. It’s a surprise to learn that Hordak doesn’t expect her to succeed. She had believed him when he had told her that she was no failure. “I thought -- well.” She stares at the floor, unsure, for once, how to proceed.

A moment later, she feels a warm hand on her shoulders. She looks up to see that Hordak is down on one knee before her, his face at her eye level. 

“My concern is premature,” Hordak says. His eyes glow yellow as he continues, “I trust your expertise.” He closes his eyes and touches his forehead to hers. He smells like his activated First Ones crystal: rain-on-stone and electrical smoke. 

It’s pleasant but confusing. “Is this a clone thing?” Entrapta asks quietly, trying to stand still. 

“What? No! I --” Hordak scrambles to his feet and brushes past her. “Get to work building the sword facsimile. I have Horde business to administer.” He storms out of the triple panel door, which slams shut and leaves Entrapta alone and bewildered.

Entrapta soon loses herself in portal simulations on the display, but a few hours later her reverie is broken when she hears the unique sound of a fist slamming against metal, somewhere near the proton fizzulator. Hordak must have returned at some point but had clearly opted not to disturb her, at least not until his frustration got the best of him just now. 

Using her ponytails to ambulate, Entrapts floats across the sanctum and up to Hordak’s turned back, then gently pats his bicep to get his attention.

Hordak spins around, his brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed. “Yes?” he growls.

Suddenly an odd shyness -- a fear of making some kind of mistake -- seizes Entrapta. But she knows that the only true failure is the experiment never attempted, so she lifts herself up by her hair and closes her eyes and bumps her forehead to his.

“What are you doing?” Hordak rasps as he begins to pull away, but Entrapta wraps a few strands of hair around the back of his head and holds him in place.

“The thing you did earlier. Am I doing it wrong?”

“Doing what wrong? What is it, precisely, that you are doing?” he asks through clenched teeth. His voice sounds kind of funny up close.

Entrapta opens her eyes and gets a cross-eyed view of her partner. “I’m showing you that I also trust you, the way you showed me earlier. Should I keep doing it?” Her forehead is starting to feel weird and warm.

“No, that’s -- that’s sufficient.” He shifts, and for a moment his hands hover near her waist before he drops them to his sides. “I -- acknowledge your sentiment. You may release me.”

Entrapta loosens her hair and lets Hordak go. She grins as she says, “We’re going to solve this sword problem, I promise. We’re an unstoppable team!”

Hordak wipes a lock of blue hair from his forehead and gives Entrapta a look that she can’t read.

On Day One Hundred and Seventy-Six, Entrapta completes the manufacture of her model sword key, and she’s ready to test it. “Remember, today we’re not trying to open up the portal,” she reminds Hordak, who is examining the blue and purple prototype. “We’re just going to see whether the machine immediately rejects anything that isn’t She-Ra’s actual weapon, or if it holds onto my fake sword for a few seconds.”

As it turns out, the machine holds onto the fake sword for a full minute before spitting it out over Hordak’s head, where it slices apart the back-up power cables and crashes into the ionic neutralizer before falling to the floor with a clang. 

“It’s a success!” Entrapta screams, bouncing around on the enormous coiled springs of her ponytails. She backflips over to Hordak and holds her fists up victoriously. “Or it will be, eventually, once I analyze the numbers.” 

Entrapta expects Hordak to return her triumphant grin, but he does not smile. Instead, he catches her around the waist. Her heart thumps, though the physiological response seems unwarranted given the circumstances. He probably wants to do the forehead thing again. She closes her eyes and tucks her chin down, but nothing happens.

After waiting for what seems like a very long time but is probably only a few seconds, Entrapta looks into Hordak’s face, which is now very, very close to hers. 

“Someday we’re going to conquer countless galaxies,” he says, his voice low. 

Her stomach flips, and this time it feels like a logical response. 

“That’s your job,” she says with a weak smile, and her words come out much shakier than she intends. Then she adds, stronger, “I’m here for science!” 

“Is that all you’re here for?” he asks, and the dip in his voice and the golden glow in his eyes and the grip of his fingers at her waist all seem suddenly very noticeable.

_Oh._ Could it possibly be that he -- “Do you want to kiss me?” she asks. 

Hordak’s ears flatten out as he sputters, “I don’t -- you -- what -- ”

“It’s alright if you don’t want to,” she adds hastily as her face flushes. _It’s alright, but I hope you want to,_ she mentally adds.

“Of course I want to,” he mutters finally, appearing deeply irritated.

“That’s great!” She grins. Those observations at Princess Prom paid off after all! “OK, hold still.” She lunges toward him with her mouth open.

He holds her back and turns his face to the side. “Not that way,” he protests.

Entrapta freezes. She only knows this one way. And her most recent physical interaction with someone else -- a single weird night with Princess Perfuma that involved far too much psychotropic plant consumption and talking about feelings -- wasn’t especially instructional. “Then -- how?” 

“More like -- this.” Hordak slowly pulls her into his embrace. He closes his eyes and tilts his head down and brushes his lips against hers. He is surprisingly warm, and Entrapta sighs contentedly into his mouth. Finally, he pulls away.

Entrapta blinks a few times. She touches a few strands of her hair to his Hordak’s face, and she traces his suit crystal with a gloved finger. “I liked it!” she declares. 

The corner of Hordak’s mouth twitches. “As did I.”

A blinking light over Hordak’s shoulder catches Entrapta’s attention. “I have to make a lot of modifications to the fake sword if I’m going to test it again tomorrow.”

Hordak releases her. “Of course.”

Together they return to work as though nothing new has come to pass between them, and for the rest of the afternoon they limit their discussions to technological topics. But at the end of the day, when Entrapta is sweeping up metal shavings from her workspace, Hordak comes and stands close to her side.

“I must meet with my Force Captains now,” he says.

“Have fun!” Entrapta says without looking up from her work.

Hordak clears his throat, and Entrapta looks up to see that his face is set with the same expression from earlier in the day.

“Oh, right!” Entrapta says. She launches herself upward and wraps her arms around Hordak's neck and plants a big wet kiss on his mouth. 

This time, Hordak does not object.

**Author's Note:**

> [possibly to be continued]
> 
> PLEASE KNOW I am not throwing shade at Perfuma/Entrapta shippers -- I support your ship! But I liked the mental image of Entrapta being slightly annoyed with the whole thing and it needed to be somebody VERY DIFFERENT than Hordak for contrast’s sake :) 
> 
> Thank you again OrnamentHorde!


End file.
